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Innocent Bystanders

How to twist statistics to push your gun-control agenda

To support his statements, he refers to Kieran Healy, a Professor at Duke who works in a completely different area of sociology, but doesn’t hesitate to butcher statistics to reach the conclusion he wants. He produced this pair of charts, showing the occurrence of assault victims for the US vs. the other OECD nations, and for different regions of the US.

Since you’re smarter than Professor Healy, you’re undoubtedly wondering why he picked deaths to indicate violence, rather than number of assaults. You may also be wondering why he picked victims instead of offenders. Finally you may wonder, after reading through his posts, why he found it difficult to break out deaths due to firearms from all assault deaths, when the data is readily available via the FBI.

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as well all know, Leftism gives you the right to lie, cheat and steal without criticism…and moreover gives you the right to bully those Non-Leftists without repercussion

reynolds…eviscerating the half-wit leftist pols and media morons:

SO IF WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A “NATIONAL CONVERSATION ON GUNS,” HERE ARE SOME OPENERS:

Why do people who favor gun-control call people who disagree with them murderers or accomplices to murder? Is that constructive?

Would any of the various proposals have actually prevented the tragedy that is the supposed reason for them?

When you say you hope that this event will finally change the debate, do you really mean that you hope you can use emotionalism and blood-libel-bullying to get your way on political issues that were losers in the past?

If you’re a media member or politician, do you have armed security? Do you have a permit for a gun yourself? (I’m asking you Dianne Feinstein!) If so, what makes your life more valuable than other people’s?

Do you know the difference between an automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon? Do your public statements reflect that difference?

Have you talked about “Fast and Furious?” Do you even know what it is? Do you care less when brown people die?

When you say that “we” need to change, how are you planning to change? Does your change involve any actual sacrifice on your part?

Let me know when you’re ready to talk about these things. We’ll have a conversation.

UPDATE: John Lucas emails:

Joe Scarborough, who claims to be a “proud NRA member” just said there is no reason to allow someone to have an “assault weapon” that shoots “30 rounds a second.”

The ignorance is appalling.

Well, yes. It’s MSNBC. But it is interesting that Scarborough — like Mark Shields and Rupert Murdoch — seems entirely ignorant of actual gun law. But to be fair, the National Firearms Act has only been around since 1934.

Friday we were told that the shooter in the Conn. school left the .223 in his car trunk. Today we are told he used a Bushmaster AR 15 and two semi automatic pistols to do the shooting, most of which was carried out we are told with the Bushmaster. Well guess what, the Bushmaster shoots the .223 round, the pistols something else. How could he have left the .223 in the car trunk and still carry out the shootings with a Bushmaster if it was the only .223 he had at the scene including what he supposedly left in his car trunk?

Just like all these mass shootings the government continues to lie and deceive to push an agenda. Now we are told he left a shotgun in the trunk conveniently allowing for the government to push it’s agenda against so called assault weapons.

When you distrust the government the most, it is most important to be armed. That’s what the Second is fundamentally about. That the government serves at our (citizen) pleasure, not the other way around.

I would just hope that things calm down. But if the anti-gunnies don’t get a clue, they may find they are losing an argument the hard way.